Beyond work and family: A measure of work/nonwork interference and enhancement.

Abstract

Though early research on the work/nonwork interface was broader in scope, most recent research has focused on the interface between work and family. There is a need for an inclusive, validated measure of work/nonwork interference and enhancement that is appropriate for all workers regardless of their marital or family life status. The authors report here on 3 studies in which they develop a theoretically grounded and empirically validated multidimensional, bidirectional measure of work/nonwork interference and enhancement. All scale items refer to work/nonwork, whereas previous measures have mixed work/family and work/nonwork items or emphasize family roles in the nonwork domain. Quantitative analysis of the scale items yielded 17 items to measure work interference with personal life, personal life interference with work, work enhancement of personal life, and personal life enhancement of work. Confirmatory factor analyses and structural equation modeling results provide evidence for convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity for the scale from 2 large samples of workers (N = 540, N = 384) across multiple job types and organizations.